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PODCAST

Doom Debates!

It"s time to talk about the end of the world. With your host, Liron Shapira. lironshapira.substack.com

technology

All Episodes

20:18

Zuck’s Superintelligence Agenda is a SCANDAL |...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/07/22

I’m doing a new weekly show on the AI Risk Network called Warning Shots. Check it out!I’m only cross-posting the first episode here on Doom Debates. You can watch future episodes by subscribing to the AI Risk Network channel.This week's warning shot: Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta is racing toward recursive self-improvement and superintelligence. His exact words: "Developing superintelligence is now in sight and we just want to make sure that we really strengthen the effort as much as possible

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94:26

Rationalist Podcasts Unite! — The Bayesian Conspiracy...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/07/18

Eneasz Brodski and Steven Zuber host the Bayesian Conspiracy podcast, which has been running for nine years and covers rationalist topics from AI safety to social dynamics. They're both OG rationalists who've been in the community since the early LessWrong days around 2007-2010. I've been listening to their show since the beginning, and finally got to meet my podcast heroes!In this episode, we get deep into the personal side of having a high P(Doom) — how do you actually live a good life when you

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65:12

His P(Doom) Doubles At The End — AI Safety Debate...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/07/15

Liam Robins is a math major at George Washington University who's diving deep into AI policy and rationalist thinking.In Part 1, we explored how AI is transforming college life. Now in Part 2, we ride the Doom Train together to see if we can reconcile our P(Doom) estimates. 🚂Liam starts with a P(Doom) of just 3%, but as we go through the stops on the Doom Train, something interesting happens: he actually updates his beliefs in realtime!We get into heated philosophical territory around moral

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105:48

AI Won't Save Your Job — Liron Reacts to Replit CEO...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/07/10

Amjad Masad is the founder and CEO of Replit, a full-featured AI-powered software development platform whose revenue reportedly just shot up from $10M/yr to $100M/yr+.Last week, he went on Joe Rogan to share his vision that "everyone will become an entrepreneur" as AI automates away traditional jobs.In this episode, I break down why Amjad's optimistic predictions rely on abstract hand-waving rather than concrete reasoning. While Replit is genuinely impressive, his claims about AI limitations—that

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38:40

Every Student is CHEATING with AI — College in the...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/07/07

Liam Robins is a math major at George Washington University who recently had his own "AGI awakening" after reading Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness. I met him at my Manifest 2025 talk about stops on the Doom Train.In this episode, Liam confirms what many of us suspected: pretty much everyone in college is cheating with AI now, and they're completely shameless about it.We dive into what college looks like today: how many students are still "rawdogging" lectures, how professors are coping

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57:05

Carl Feynman, AI Engineer & Son of Richard Feynman,...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/07/04

Carl Feynman got his Master’s in Computer Science and B.S. in Philosophy from MIT, followed by a four-decade career in AI engineering.He’s known Eliezer Yudkowsky since the ‘90s, and witnessed Eliezer’s AI doom argument taking shape before most of us were paying any attention!He agreed to come on the show because he supports Doom Debates’s mission of raising awareness of imminent existential risk from superintelligent AI.00:00 - Teaser00:34 - Carl Feynman’s Background02:40 - Early Concerns About AI

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112:46

Richard Hanania vs. Liron Shapira — AI Doom Debate

Doom Debates! ·

2025/06/28

Richard Hanania is the President of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. His work has been praised by Vice President JD Vance, Tyler Cowen, and Bryan Caplan among others.In his influential newsletter, he’s written about why he finds AI doom arguments unconvincing. He was gracious enough to debate me on this topic. Let’s see if one of us can change the other’s P(Doom)!0:00 Intro1:53 Richard's politics2:24 The state of political discourse3:30 What's your P(Doom)?™6:38 How to stop the

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113:11

Emmett Shear (OpenAI Ex-Interim-CEO)'s New “Softmax”...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/06/24

Emmett Shear is the cofounder and ex-CEO of Twitch, ex-interim-CEO of OpenAI, and a former Y Combinator partner. He recently announced Softmax, a new company researching a novel solution to AI alignment.In his recent interview, Emmett explained “organic alignment”, drawing comparisons to biological systems and advocating for AI to be raised in a community-like setting with humans.Let’s go through his talk, point by point, to see if Emmett’s alignment plan makes sense…00:00 Episode Highlights00:36

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75:45

Will AI Have a Moral Compass? — Debate with Scott...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/06/18

Prof. Scott Sumner is a well-known macroeconomist who spent more than 30 years teaching at Bentley University, and now holds an Emeritus Chair in monetary policy at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. He's best known for his blog, the Money Illusion, which sparked the idea of Market Monetarism and NGDP targeting.I sat down with him at LessOnline 2025 to debate why his P(Doom) is pretty low. Where does he get off the Doom Train? 🚂00:00 Episode Preview00:34 Introducing Scott Sumner05:20 Is AGI

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5:01

Searle's Chinese Room is DUMB — It's Just Slow-Motion...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/06/14

John Searle's "Chinese Room argument" has been called one of the most famous thought experiments of the 20th century. It's still frequently cited today to argue AI can never truly become intelligent.People continue to treat the Chinese Room like a brilliant insight, but in my opinion, it's actively misleading and DUMB! Here’s why…00:00 Intro00:20 What is Searle's Chinese Room Argument?01:43 John Searle (1984) on Why Computers Can't Understand01:54 Why the "Chinese Room" Metaphor is MisleadingThis

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43:49

Doom Debates Live @ Manifest 2025 — Liron vs. Everyone

Doom Debates! ·

2025/06/09

Let’s see where the attendees of Manifest 2025 get off the Doom Train, and whether I can convince them to stay on and ride with me to the end of the line!00:00 Introduction to Doom Debates03:21 What’s Your P(Doom)?™05:03 🚂 “AGI Isn't Coming Soon”08:37 🚂 “AI Can't Surpass Human Intelligence”12:20 🚂 “AI Won't Be a Physical Threat”13:39 🚂 “Intelligence Yields Moral Goodness”17:21 🚂 “Safe AI Development Process”17:38 🚂 “AI Capabilities Will Rise at a Manageable Pace”20:12 🚂 “AI Won't Try to

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27:36

Poking holes in the AI doom argument — 83 stops where...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/06/07

I often talk about the “Doom Train”, the series of claims and arguments involved in concluding that P(Doom) from artificial superintelligence is high. In this episode, it’s finally time to show you the whole track!00:00 Introduction01:09 “AGI isn’t coming soon”04:42 “Artificial intelligence can’t go far beyond human intelligence”07:24 “AI won’t be a physical threat”08:28 “Intelligence yields moral goodness”09:39 “We have a safe AI development process”10:48 “AI capabilities will rise at a manageable

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95:49

Q&A: Ilya's AGI Doomsday Bunker, Veo 3 is Westworld,...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/05/29

Ilya’s doom bunker, proof of humanity, the doomsday argument, CAIS firing John Sherman, Bayesian networks, Westworld, AI consciousness, Eliezer’s latest podcast, and more!00:00 Introduction04:13 Doomsday Argument09:22 What if AI Alignment is *Intractable*?14:31 Steel-Manning the Nondoomers22:13 No State-Level AI Regulation for 10 years?32:31 AI Consciousness35:25 Westworld Is Real Now38:01 Proof of Humanity40:33 Liron’s Notary Network Idea43:34 Center for AI Safety and John Sherman Controversy57:04

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81:47

This $85M-Backed Founder Claims Open Source AGI is...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/05/22

Dr. Himanshu Tyagi is a professor of engineering at the Indian Institute of Science and the co-founder of Sentient, an open-source AI platform that raised $85M in funding led by Founders Fund.In this conversation, Himanshu gives me Sentient’s pitch. Then we debate whether open-sourcing frontier AGI development is a good idea, or a reckless way to raise humanity’s P(doom).00:00 Introducing Himanshu Tyagi01:41 Sentient’s Vision05:20 How’d You Raise $85M?11:19 Comparing Sentient to Competitors27:26

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16:43

Emergency Episode: John Sherman FIRED from Center for...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/05/21

My friend John Sherman from the For Humanity podcast got hired by the Center for AI Safety (CAIS) two weeks ago.Today I suddenly learned he’s been fired.I’m frustrated by this decision, and frustrated with the whole AI x-risk community’s weak messaging.Come to the Less Online conference on May 30 - Jun 1, 2025: https://less.onlineHope to see you there!Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk! https://www.youtube.com/@lethal-intelligencePauseAI, the volunteer

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124:01

Gary Marcus vs. Liron Shapira — AI Doom Debate

Doom Debates! ·

2025/05/15

Prof. Gary Marcus is a scientist, bestselling author and entrepreneur, well known as one of the most influential voices in AI. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience at NYU. He was founder and CEO of Geometric Intelligence, a machine learning company acquired by Uber in 2016.Gary co-authored the 2019 book, Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust, and the 2024 book, Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us. He played an important role in the

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135:10

Mike Israetel vs. Liron Shapira — AI Doom Debate

Doom Debates! ·

2025/05/08

Dr. Mike Israetel, renowned exercise scientist and social media personality, and more recently a low-P(doom) AI futurist, graciously offered to debate me!00:00 Introducing Mike Israetel12:19 What’s Your P(Doom)™30:58 Timelines for Artificial General Intelligence34:49 Superhuman AI Capabilities43:26 AI Reasoning and Creativity47:12 Evil AI Scenario01:08:06 Will the AI Cooperate With Us?01:12:27 AI's Dependence on Human Labor01:18:27 Will AI Keep Us Around to Study Us?01:42:38 AI's Approach to

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84:12

Doom Scenario: Human-Level AI Can't Control Smarter AI

Doom Debates! ·

2025/05/05

I want to be transparent about how I’ve updated my mainline AI doom scenario in light of safe & useful LLMs. So here’s where I’m at…00:00 Introduction07:59 The Dangerous Threshold to Runaway Superintelligence18:57 Superhuman Goal Optimization = Infinite Time Horizon21:21 Goal-Completeness by Analogy to Turing-Completeness26:53 Intellidynamics29:13 Goal-Optimization Is Convergent31:15 Early AIs Lose Control of Later AIs34:46 The Superhuman Threshold Is Real38:27 Expecting Rapid FOOM40:20 Rocket

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113:28

The Most Likely AI Doom Scenario — with Jim Babcock,...

Doom Debates! ·

2025/04/30

What’s the most likely (“mainline”) AI doom scenario? How does the existence of LLMs update the original Yudkowskian version? I invited my friend Jim Babcock to help me answer these questions.Jim is a member of the LessWrong engineering team and its parent organization, Lightcone Infrastructure. I’ve been a longtime fan of his thoughtful takes.This turned out to be a VERY insightful and informative discussion, useful for clarifying my own predictions, and accessible to the show’s audience.00:00

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119:13

AI Gives Humans MORE Control — Ozzie Gooen

Doom Debates! ·

2025/04/24

Ozzie Gooen is the founder of the Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute (QURI), a nonprofit building software tools for forecasting and policy analysis. I’ve known him through the rationality community since 2008 and we have a lot in common.00:00 Introducing Ozzie02:18 The Rationality Community06:32 What’s Your P(Doom)™08:09 High-Quality Discourse and Social Media14:17 Guesstimate and Squiggle Demos31:57 Prediction Markets and Rationality38:33 Metaforecast Demo41:23 Evaluating Everything with

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149 results

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